Shared Land/Conflicting Identity: Trajectories of Israeli & Palestinian Symbol Use

Chapter 1: The Symbolic Roots of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

1 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQP The Symbolic Roots of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict zyxwvutsrqponmlkji 11111 The handshake between Yitzhak Rabin, prime minister of Israel, and Yasir Arafat, chair of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), on the White House lawn on 13 September 1993 symbolized to some the dawning of a new age in the Middle East. With that handshake, suddenly it seemed that the Palestinian and Israeli people, who had hated and fought each other for generations, might be able to achieve peace. Many of those who have focused on the handshake and other events in the Middle East peace process have explained the movement toward peace based on historical factors such as the demise of the Soviet Union and the Allied victory in the Gulf War or on the negotiation skills of various actors in the drama. While the historical events and the negotiation process were crucial, another force, the evolving symbolic practices of Israelis and Palestinians , also played a key role. Without symbolic change, there would have been no handshake. And as the tragic cycle of terrorist attack and Israeli response that began in the fall of 2000 indicated, without further symbolic change, that movement on the White House lawn and the Oslo process that developed out of it will be remembered as a missed opportunity in the search for peace. 9 10 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Chapter One zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPO Symbolic Change and the Handshake The Washington ceremony was an important moment in history to Israelis and Palestinians and a great surprise to many Western observers. Indeed, the Oslo Accords, the handshake, and the speeches overturned the Zionist chiasmus coined by Israel Zangwill, an early Zionist and a leading member of the Order of Ancient Maccabeans, that the Zionists were settling in "[t]he land without people-for people without land/'1 Rabin and Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres delivered speeches at Washington that annulled Golda Meir's declaration, made in a 1970 speech in London, that "there is no such thing as Palestinians/'2 At the same time, the symbols of Oslo upended a deeply held Palestinian conviction that Zionists did not exist. In 1937, a member of the Arab Higher Committee, Izzat Eff. Darwazeh, argued before the Peel Commission that "the Arabs do not admit the existence of the Jews as Zionists at all." Because "Jews as Zionists" do not exist, "we utterly refuse to meet at the same table with any persons who call themselves Zionist Jews."3 This conviction was codified in the 1964 Palestinian Charter, which called for the destruction of Israel, stipulating in Article 8 that there was "a fundamental contradiction between Zionism on the one side and the Palestinian Arab people on the other. On this basis, the Palestinian masses . . . comprise one national front" to liberate Palestine "through armed struggle."4 In striking contrast to the past denial of the existence of the other, each of the principals at the signing ceremony focused on the need for mutual recognition and peace in their speeches.5 President William Clinton began by referring to the signing as "an extraordinary act in one of history's defining dramas," an act that could lead to a "peace of the brave," that would allow Israelis and Palestinians "the quiet miracle of a normal life."6 Peres then labeled the agreement "a revolution" that transformed "a dream" into "a commitment." Echoing Clinton's praise for "normal" life, he called for all parties to "turn from bullets to ballots, from guns to shovels," and promised the Palestinians that Israel would work with them to make "Gaza prosper and Jericho blossom again."7 Mahmoud Abbas of the PLO then referred to the peace process as "a journey that is surrounded by numerous dangers and difficulties" but that with "mutual determination" can end in "a secure peace characterized by cooperation." He, too, spoke of ordinary life, labeling "economic development " as "the principal challenge facing the Palestinian people." The Symbolic Roots of the Conflict zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZY 11 Following Abbas, Rabin first spoke of how "as a soldier in Israel's war" it was not "so easy" for him to be there. He labeled his feelings as "great hope mixed with apprehension" and then spoke eloquently of the need for peace. "We have come to try and put an end to the hostilities so that our children, our children's children will no longer experience the painful cost of war." To Palestinians, he first said that "we...